This invention relates to recording and playback technologies and, more particularly, to a recorder, a method for recording a piece of music, a player, a method for reproducing the piece of music and an ensemble system for an ensemble represented by plural sorts of music data codes differently formatted.
Compact discs are popular to music lovers. Pieces of music are recorded in the compact discs, and are reproduced by a compact disc player. While a musician was playing the piece of music, the tones were converted to an analog audio signal, and discrete values were sampled from the analog audio signal. The discrete values were converted to binary values, and the binary values are stored in the compact disc in the form of digital codes together with control data codes representative of the lapse of time from the initiation of the performance. In the following description, the digital codes representative of the discrete values and control data codes representative of the lapse of time are referred to as xe2x80x9caudio data codes.xe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9ctime data codesxe2x80x9d, respectively, and term xe2x80x9ccompact disc data codesxe2x80x9d is indicative of both of the audio data codes and the time data codes.
Another sort of digital data codes popular to the music lowers is MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) music data codes. The MIDI music data codes are formatted on the basis of the MIDI standards, and event codes and duration data codes are typical examples of the format. The event codes mainly represent note events, i. e., note-on events and note-off events. A tone is generated in the note-on event, and the tone is decayed in the note-off event. The other event codes represent other sorts of events such as, for example, the end of a performance. The duration data code is indicative of the time interval between the note events. Thus, the duration data codes are produced on the basis of the definition different from that of the time data codes. A set of MIDI music data codes represents a piece of music, and the piece of music is reproduced through MIDI musical instruments.
The compact disc players are sold in the market, and the pieces of music are reproduced from the compact disc data codes stored in the compact discs. Similarly, various sorts of musical instruments are sold in the market, and the pieces of music are reproduced from the MIDI music data codes stored in floppy discs through the musical instruments. However, the compact disc player can not reproduce the pieces of music represented by the MIDI music data codes, and the user can not use the floppy discs in the playback of the pieces of music. In this situation, even if a part of a piece of music is recorded in a compact disc in the form of compact disc data codes and another part of the piece of music is recorded in a floppy disc in the form of MIDI music data codes, it is difficult to reproduce the plural parts of the piece of music through the compact disc player and the MIDI musical instrument in ensemble.
One of the problems is how to process the compact disc data codes and MIDI music data codes synchronously. As described hereinbefore, the time data codes represent the lapse of time from the initiation of the performance. On the other hand, each duration data code represents a time interval between the note events. The time at which tones are generated is differently controlled between a part of a piece of and another part of the piece of music. If a user wishes to reproduce the piece of music in ensemble, either time data codes or duration data codes are to be converted to the duration data codes or time data codes. However, the compact disc players presently sold in the market neither have any signal output port from which the time data codes are output to the outside nor any signal input port for receiving the duration data codes. Moreover, the compact disc player and MIDI musical instrument do not have any software for controlling the recording and playback on the basis of the other sort of time data.
In these circumstances, it is impossible to reproduce a part of a piece of music through the MIDI musical instrument in ensemble with another part of the piece of music reproduced through the compact disc player. When the user wishes to record his performance on the MIDI musical instrument in ensemble with the piece of music reproduced through the compact disc player, the duration data codes are produced independently of the time data codes, and the recorder of the MIDI musical instrument does not correlate the duration data codes with the time data codes.
It is therefore an important object of the present invention to provide a recorder, with which a sort of music data representative of a performance is recorded in ensemble with reproduction of a piece of music represented by another sort of music data.
It is also an important object of the present invention to provide a recording method, through which the recorder records the sort of music data in ensemble with the reproduction.
It is another important object of the present invention to provide a player, through which a performance represented by a sort of music data is reproduced in ensemble with reproduction of a piece of music represented by another sort of music data.
It is also an important object of the present invention to provide a playback method, through which the player reproduces the performance represented by the sort of music data in ensemble with the reproduction of the piece of music represented by another sort of music data.
It is yet another important object of the present invention to provide a synchronizer, which controls two tone generators for an ensemble on the basis of different sorts of music data.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a recorder for recording a first passage in an information storage medium as pieces of first data in ensemble with a second passage produced on the basis of pieces of second data different in data format from the pieces of first data, and the recorder comprises a first analyzer analyzing an analog signal produced in response to a first clock signal for detecting at least one local peak of the analog signal and producing at least one piece of first timing data, a second analyzer analyzing the pieces of first data and the aforesaid at least one piece of first timing data for determining time intervals among the pieces of first data and the aforesaid at least one piece of first timing data and producing pieces of second timing data each representative of one of the time intervals as a number of clocks of a second clock signal without a guarantee that a frequency thereof is equal to a frequency of the first clock signal and a writer connected to the first analyzer, the second analyzer and a source of the pieces of first data and writing the at least one piece of first timing data, the pieces of first data and the pieces of second timing data in the information storage medium.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for recording a performance along a first passage in an information storage medium as pieces of first data in ensemble with a second passage produced on the basis of pieces of second data different in data format from the pieces of first data, and the method comprises the steps of a) producing an analog signal representative of the second passage from the pieces of second data in response to a first clock signal, b) monitoring the analog signal to see whether or not a local peak occurs in the analog signal, c) producing a piece of first timing data when the local peak occurs, d) analyzing the piece of first timing data and the pieces of first data for producing a piece of second timing data representative of a time interval between the piece of first timing data and one of the pieces of first data and e) storing the piece of first timing data, the piece of second timing data and the pieces of first data in the information storage medium.
In accordance with yet another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a player for reproducing a first passage from pieces of first data in ensemble with a second passage produced on the basis of pieces of second data different in data format from the pieces of first data, the player comprises a first analyzer analyzing an analog signal produced from the pieces of second data in response to a first clock signal for detecting at least one local peak in the analog signal and producing a piece of first timing data representative of an occurrence of the at least one local peak, a data-to-sound converter for producing the first passage from the pieces of first data and a read-out device connected to the first analyzer and the data-to-sound converter and responsive to the piece of first timing data so as to start to read out the pieces of first data and the pieces of second timing data from the information storage medium, and the read-out device waits for the expiry of a time period defined by each piece of second timing data read out from the information storage medium as a number of clocks of a second clock signal without a guarantee that a frequency thereof is equal to a frequency of the first clock signal for transferring associated one of the pieces of first data to the data-to-sound converter when the time period is expired.
In accordance with still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of reproducing a first passage from pieces of first data in ensemble with a second passage produced on the basis of pieces of second data different in data format from the pieces of first data comprising the steps of a) producing an analog signal representative of the second passage from the pieces of second data in response to a first clock signal, b) monitoring the analog signal to see whether or not a local peak occurs in the analog signal, c) producing a piece of first timing data when the local peak occurs, d) reading out a piece of second timing data representative of a time interval between a piece of first read-out timing data representative of the local peak in a recording and one of the pieces of first data and the aforesaid one of the pieces of first data from an information storage medium, and e) producing a tone or tones of the first passage on the basis of the aforesaid one of the pieces of first data when the time interval is expired.
In accordance with yet another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a composite audio system for recording a first passage in an information storage medium as pieces of first data in ensemble with a second passage represented by pieces of second data different in data format from the pieces of first data and reproducing the first passage in ensemble with the second passage; the composite audio system comprises a recorder including a first analyzer analyzing an analog signal produced in response to a first clock signal for detecting at least one local peak of the analog signal and producing at least one piece of first timing data in a recording, a second analyzer analyzing the pieces of first data and the aforesaid at least one piece of first timing data for determining time intervals among the pieces of first data and the aforesaid at least one piece of first timing data and producing pieces of second timing data each representative of one of the time intervals as a number of clocks of a second clock signal without a guarantee that a frequency thereof is equal to a frequency of the first clock signal and a writer connected to the first analyzer, the second analyzer and a source of the pieces of first data and writing the aforesaid at least one piece of first timing data, the pieces of first data and the pieces of second timing data in the information storage medium and a player including the first analyzer further analyzing the analog signal for detecting the aforesaid at least one local peak and producing the piece of first timing data representative of an occurrence of the aforesaid at least one local peak in a playback, a data-to-sound converter for producing the first passage from the pieces of first data transferred from the information storage medium and a read-out device connected to the first analyzer and the data-to-sound converter and responsive to the piece of first timing data so as start to read out the pieces of second timing data and the pieces of first data from the information storage medium, and the read-out device waits for the expiry of a time period defined by each piece of second timing data read out from the information storage medium as a number of clocks of a second clock signal without a guarantee that a frequency thereof is equal to a frequency of the first clock signal for transferring associated one or ones of the pieces of first data to the data-to-sound converter when the time period is expired.